Helnwein's vision is revealed as grand and arresting. The film rightly admires Helnwein's work and serves it best when just showing it.Village Voice.Gottfried Helnwein and the Dreaming Child is both a visual feast and landmark union of artistic titans Levin and Helnwein, both concerned with the theme of childhood innocence betrayed.Atlanta Jewish Film Festival.Helnwein's realization of the final scene takes the breath awayToronto Star.Helnwein's eternal theme, inspired by the Holocaust, is children and their violated innocence.New York Times.The sets and costumes designed by the artist are indeed visually impressive, especially a haunting image of children suspended over the stage like ascending angels.The Hollywood Reporter.What we are allowed to see of the actual production is impressive indeed, in terms of set design, color, lighting and dramatic impact. Helnwein pulls off a fourth-act coup de theatre, staging Levin’s idea of a pile of dead children as a more viscerally exciting image of suspended bodies, like barely alive puppets, which is quite breathtaking.FilmJournal.One of the great things about this documentary is that, while many out there might be familiar with Helnwein’s artwork or installations, they may not be familiar with where his ideas come from, or what it’s like when he works. In that way, the film is a wonderful look at a stunning contemporary artist.Film Threat.It will prove to be Helnwein’s greatest coup de theater, a hypnotic final-act tableau of dozens of “dead children” suspended in black space. This time there can be little doubt that Helnwein’s judgment is correct; even on screen the effect is startling and eerily beautiful.The Jewish Week

Helnwein has produced an impressive body of work, largely informed by the horrors of the Holocaust. It was the themes and sensitivities of his oeuvre that inspired the Israeli Opera to commission Helnwein’s designs for an ambitious new production. Lisa Kirk Colburn documents the visual artist’s sometime dramatic collaborative process in Gottfried Helnwein and the Dreaming Child, which opens this Friday in New York.Images of children in various states of vulnerability reappear over and over in his photo-realist paintings. Not surprisingly, Helnwein had a deep affinity for Hanoch Levin’s allegorical play, The Dreaming Child and its Helnweinesque title character.When Helnwein designs a stage production, he does not dash off a few set decorations and call it a day. Essentially, he takes over the show, at least to judge by the evidence of Dreaming Child. Director and co-librettist Omri Nitzan comes across like an evenhanded mediator, but some of the Opera’s creative crew clash repeatedly with the celebrity artist. That’s just what you get when you bring in a design auteur. An engaging art documentary, Dreaming Child also offers additional social-historical significance by forthrightly exploring the themes of Helnwein and Levin’s work. Recommended for Helnwein’s fans and patrons of Israeli culture, Gottfried Helnwein and the Dreaming Child opens this Friday (11/23) in New York at the Quad Cinema.